


Blood Calls to Blood

by spuffyduds



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-26
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wes enlists Connor's help in searching for Angel and Cordelia, and gets some information he didn't bargain for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Calls to Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as a pinch-hit for likeadeuce's Between-the-Seasons Ficathon. This was written for lillianmorgan's request for a story involving: Wesley, Spike and Connor; (general, not relationshippy) set between AtS 3/4 and BtVS 6/7, and including Lilah-meddling, Sunset Boulevard and mystic tomes.

Despite all he's learned about prophecies, they're still the first thing Wesley turns to, when Gunn and Fred call, looking for Angel and Cordelia. They call together, of course, on hotel extensions, because they do everything together, and what with them talking over each other and interrupting and backtracking to fill in each other's story gaps it's a while before he can work out that this all happened—

"A _week_ ago?" he says.

There's a shared silence on the other end. Of course, they wouldn't have contacted him until they were desperate, would they?

"Wes," Fred says. "We're—I'm sorry. It's just that at first, we were hoping—maybe they'd gone off together, you know? And then, when we didn't hear from them, well, Charles has all these street contacts still, and we didn't want to…bother you."

"Ah," he says, and for a minute he just lets them twist in the chill background wind of the telephone line.

But he owes it to Angel to try, at least, and says so, and hangs up while Fred is still thanking him.

****************************************

So he hits the prophecies, all the huge unwieldy volumes left over from his various failed careers as watcher, rogue, sidekick. He has to portion out his whiskey rather carefully because he's loaded up on Benadryl—why are mystic tomes always musty?

He sniffles his way through volume after volume, at first with the vague hope that he'll find something like, "And verily, the Vampyre with a Soul and the Leader of Cheeres shalle knocke each other's boots, and yea they shalle be so hornie they shalle forget how to use a celle phone."

But no such luck. And after a few days of drinking and sneezing and plowing through volume after volume of Greek and Aramaic that say absolutely nothing, and say it at great length, he's had enough.

He starts pacing his living room, trying to shake himself out of the bookpast into the present. Something more modern, more---_real_ than prophecies. He'd been a detective, of sorts, after all. What did a detective do, in a missing-persons case?

Ask around to former associates of the missing people—Gunn had done that. Knock on doors in a widening circle around each of the abandoned cars—Fred had done that, with Gunn lurking out of sight in case backup was needed. They'd found that not many people opened their doors if Gunn knocked.

What hadn't they tried? Flyers on telephone poles, "desperately seeking" personal ads, bloodhounds…

Oh.

"Blood calls to blood," he says aloud.

******************************************

He calls them back while he's still flush with the excitement of the idea, but realizes when Fred answers with that hopeful smile he can _hear_ in her voice that he hasn't even thought about how to say this. And stupidly blurts out, "I need to take Connor."

Silence, with no smile in it.

"I mean—"he hurriedly fleshes out his plan. Take Connor to Spike, the only one of Angel's immediate "family" he has the vaguest idea where to find. Spike (who, he hastens to explain, is electronically "tamed") will meet Connor, get reminded of the family scent, and come back to LA to work in widening circles around Angel's last known whereabouts.

"Why take Connor with you?" Fred says, and he can hear wariness. Justified, of course. "Why not just bring Spike back here? Why's he have to sniff him in Sunnydale?"

"I'm not sure Spike would _come_ here because I'm not sure he'd believe me about Connor without, er, sniffing him first. It is unprecedented, you know." And doesn't add, because I'm lonely. Because I'd like somebody to talk to on the long stretches of highway between radio stations. Because apologizing to the father didn't work out too well, but maybe if I apologize to the son, _he_ won't try to kill me.

They talk it over, the Hyperion crew, and decide his idea is the best they've got. Wes warns them that the trip might be really short, or take a week if they have to track down Spike. And then he gets two solid days of phone calls, from Gunn and Fred, separately.

Gunn: Boy _thinks_ he can drive. Do _not_ let him drive.  
*****************************  
Fred: Okay, maybe he's mystically seventeen, but you still have to remind him to brush his teeth.  
*****************************  
Gunn: What do you mean, Spike's _chipped_? Huh. That work? Man, find out how they did that. That's tight.  
*****************************  
Fred: He'll try to get away with eating nothing but meat. I don't think they had vegetables or fruit on Qor'toth. I don't know why he didn't die of scurvy. Maybe he ate grass. Or maybe his vitamin needs are different. Huh, that's a thought. I could test…

Wes: Fred.

Fred: Right. Sorry. Anyway, sometimes you can get him to eat salsa. And that's at least good for his prostate, right? All that lycopene.

Wes: Fred.

Fred: Yeah, I don't like to think about him having a prostate either.  
******************************  
Gunn: Seriously. Do _not_ let him drive.  
******************************  
Fred: And you have to remind him to change his clothes once in a while. He's getting…less feral, though!  
******************************  
Gunn: Listen, I know all that stuff before was…you were trying to be the good guy, right? But just in case…I want you to know that if you give him any reason to, Connor will kick your ass.

Wes: I'm well aware—

Gunn: No, man. You haven't seen him fight. This kid goes _beyond_ medieval on their asses. He goes biblical. Like, Old Testament. He's kinda…scary.

Wes: Thank you for your concern.

And he can't tell anymore if he's being sarcastic.

 

********************************

So finally they manage to leave the Hyperion, each of them with a duffel full of clean clothes. Fred and Gunn give awkward waves to Wes, promise to keep searching locally, and then Fred gives Connor one last torrent of hygiene and politeness advice and a big hug, which Connor endures. Rather ungraciously, Wes thinks, but he's no idea whether that's a Qor'toth-trauma thing or a seventeen thing

They drive east, silently, for a bit. Wes has commandeered the Angelmobile, explaining that the car will stay in better shape if it gets driven once in a while. He does not explain that the car—how did Harris once put it?—"gives him a happy."

They've not gone far when Wes remembers that all his spiffy weapons are still at his apartment. Maybe Spike is harmless but it's still a Hellmouth, isn't it? And, honestly, he'd like to show off the cool blades that shoot out of his sleeves.

So he takes a quick detour, lets himself into the apartment, and immediately regrets it when Lilah steps out of the shadows. Dammit, he wanted to keep her out of this entirely.

She quirks a smile at him. "I thought I'd park down the street and surprise you, but I see—"she nods at the window, "you've already got company."

He waits for the barrage of questions about Angel's son but when he peers over her shoulder he can see that Connor's slid down in the seat and put his feet on the dashboard. All they can see of him is a mop of wind-deranged hair and long gangly legs.

"Who's the boy?" Lilah says, and he flushes with relief and starts fumbling for some story about a teen-prodigy gun-runner, but before he can get going properly she's laughing.

"You're _blushing_," she says. "Why, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, I didn't know you swung that way," and he readjusts his thoughts and calls up that noir-ish voice she likes so much and growls, "I'll take anything with a tight ass and loose morals," and she grins proudly.

They end up on the kitchen floor. There's a good bit of travel across the floor, and at one point his head is getting thumped rhythmically against the bottom of the refrigerator door but he doesn't really mind, and then Lilah gets some of her hair caught in the heating vent. It takes a while.

Wes walks funny back out to the car, weapons back over one shoulder, looks at Connor. The boy's still slumped, feet on the dashboard, looks a question at Wes. Ah…feet on the dashboard is _bad_, and he wants to know if he's getting away with it in Dad's precious car.

Wes shrugs at him and Connor almost smiles.

They drive for a few minutes, then the boy finally speaks for the first time.

"You were in there for a long time," he says. "And you have crumbs in your hair. And you smell like vagina."

Several questions present themselves, but very quickly Wes decides he doesn't really want the answers to any of them.

"I was distracting an enemy," Wes says. Connor keeps staring at him, and he adds, "It's an advanced technique."

*********************************

They drive for an hour or two, and Wes keeps thinking about an apology, but how to start? "I'm so sorry I ruined your life! I really thought I had that prophecy sussed out—whoopsie!"

So finally he just starts talking, babbling really, trying to be reassuring about their chances of finding Angel.

"It's cheering to think that he's possibly with Cordelia. I find it difficult to imagine anything too ghastly happening to Cordy. I know she's actually been through a lot, but she always prevails through—sheer force of will, I think. And with that smile still going! I remember once, a while back—"_when it was Cordy and Gunn and me. When Gunn still called me "English."_ "—we killed this incredibly grotesque demon. More than usual. I believe this demon was made up _entirely_ of bile ducts. So, at the end of the battle, Cordy had been thoroughly biled, and had her shoulder dislocated, and her new boots ruined, which she was _extremely_ vocal about. And she turned to me with bits of god knows what in her hair and all over her face, and gave me that huge smile and said, "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!"

Wes is grinning, lost in the memory; he takes a hand off the wheel and adds a little flourish-wave to the punchline. And realizes Connor is looking at him completely blankly.

"Ah," he says, "'Sunset Boulevard'? Sorry. Of course you have some catching up to do on classic cinema. That would be a good one to start with, really—quite amusing in spots, but tragic overall. Narrated by a drowned man."

Something happens to Connor's face. For a dizzying, bewildered second Wes thinks the boy has vamped out, which is impossible. Then he realizes it was just a flicker of a sneer, flashing the teeth. Teenagers, Wes thinks. No respect for the classics. But the moment of fear lingers longer than it ought.

"What did you do for—entertainment, on Qor'toth?" Wes asks, and immediately curses himself for an idiot. It's a hell dimension, you fool. What do you expect him to say, we went to Satan's Skate-O-Rama and the Putt-Putt of Doom?

But Connor seems to take the question seriously, shifting in his seat to look at Wes more than he has so far. "Tracking," he says. "Hunting. Killing things," and smiles.

"What sort of things?" Wes says, prepared to take mental notes on any techniques for demons new to him.

"All kinds of demons. Monsters. There was one kind that Dad—Holtz—just called the Liars. They were really hard for me to kill, at first, but that was just me being stupid. After I got over that they were really easy. Soft."

"What was hard about them, at first?" Wes says, liking the animation that's crept into Connor's voice, wanting to keep him talking.

"They looked—like Holtz and me."

"Oh—like humans. But not—sentient? Not evolved?"

"Oh, yeah, they talked and stuff. Mostly screamed."

Wes just breathes and drives for a moment. "What made them…not human, then?"

"Extra fingers," Connor says happily. "Seven on each hand."

Wes is quiet for a minute, getting his voice under control. "That doesn't sound like much of a difference," he says.

Connor shrugs, twists away from him again. "Not human is not human," he says, in a singsong recitation voice.

They're quiet for the rest of the trip, because Wes doesn't feel like apologizing anymore.

********************************

They park cemeteryside, and make their way to the crypt that's Spike's last known address. Wes, feeling rather foolish, knocks.

The door is flung open by a seven-foot wrinkle, with legs. Good lord, Wes thinks, it's a Shar-Pei demon. He can hear Connor's hissing intake of breath beside him and puts a restraining hand on the boy's arm, because the demon is saying, "Well, hey! I've got some Mr. Pibb if you want it, but I gotta tell you, I don't need any more copies of the Watchtower."

They get that sorted out. The demon introduces himself as Clem, and Wes identifies himself fairly accurately and Connor just as an associate, and produces enough details about Spike to convince Clem that they're old buddies. Clem pumps Wes's hand enthusiastically and reaches out for Connor's.

Connor puts his hands in his pockets.

"Oh. Well. Okay," Clem says. "I've heard rumors about Spike, but I dunno how much good it'll do you if you do find him. See, he was really screwed up, and then he disappeared for a while and came back more screwed up. I mean--"he waves his huge hands around his head, makes woo-woo noises. "_Iss_ues. And then, from what I hear, he started camping out in the high school basement. And that place—bad vibes. Bad. Evil enough to make you sick even if you thrive on evil. Which, of course," he smiles, "I don't."

After Wes has acquired directions and politely refused offers of Falconcrest re-runs, Mallomars and Slim Jims, they head back to the car.

"We should have killed that thing," Connor says.

"Oh yes. He was being so threatening. Why, the Mallomars alone probably would have raised our cholesterol to fatal levels."

"Not human is—"

"Be quiet," Wes says sharply, and Connor shuts up until they've pulled away from the graveyard. Even then Wes can barely hear him when he mumbles, "I would have _liked_ a Slim Jim."

**********************

When they pull into the school parking lot, Wes can already feel it. He remembers the constant low-grade buzz of evil around Sunnydale. When he was a watcher, it was oddly—invigorating, proof that he was needed. But this—this is multiplied a hundredfold, like cold teeth pulling at his stomach from inside, a frozen swarm of bees in his brain. He staggers out of the car, rights his gait with great concentration.

Connor's beside him grinning, bouncing on his toes. "Action," he says, "coming up. Can't you feel it?"

They load up with weapons and Connor easily snaps a door lock. They walk through the echoing halls, Wes in the lead, until Connor says, "How do you know where we're going?"

"I'm just heading whichever way feels worst."

Finally Wes finds basement stairs and leads on down, fighting the waves of sick that are battering him. They wander the basement, which seems much bigger than it has any right to be. It's a Tardis, he thinks wearily, and then they come around a pile of crates and find what used to be Spike, huddled in a corner.

Why, he's _tiny_, Wes thinks. His size was all swagger. It's like one of those huge dogs that's all fur, and when it gets wet it's just…spindly and pathetic.

Wet dogs smell better, though. Spike is indescribably rancid, and when Wes shines his torch around he sees what are almost certainly rat bones.

The sad little creature is scrabbling away from them, one hand up like he expects to be hit. "Spike," Wes says gently.

The vampire cocks his head, looks raptly into the gloom off to his left. "Who's—oh, him? Really?"

He looks back at them, says, "Rogue baby hunter, eh?" to Wes, who steps back, startled. "Did you eat the one you took? They're tasty, they are, all soft."

"No," Wes says, "I—"but Spike is up suddenly and almost nose-to-nose with Connor, who flinches at the stench but stands his ground.

Spike smiles, turns to the empty dark again, says, "No, you don't need to tell me who this one is. I can smell it—blood will out." He turns to Connor. "You're my nephew, cousin, something." Circles him, smile fading, says, "Oh, but Angel slept with his mummy, didn't he?" and drops to the floor again. "Mummies oughtn't to do that. Not good." He begins to cry.

And Wes feels ridiculous even trying, but they've come this far, and he hunkers down next to the sobbing mess, touches an arm gingerly, says, "Spike—"

The vampire looks up, says softly, "Not Spike, no more. I think I'm William again. Or still. Or nobody. She used to call me sweet William. That's a flower."

"Yes. An opiate, apparently," Wes says. This is obviously useless, but he plugs on, "Spike, if you can smell the blood of your sire—"

"Grandsire," Spike says, looks at Connor, giggles. "You, luscious, are my grandsire carved in alabaster."

"Yes, well." Wes says. "Right. If you can smell that, er, ancestral blood, could you find—"

"Oh, no more blood for me, thank you kindly. I've done that, ripped out the throats and swam in it." He wraps his arms around his knees and starts to rock back and forth. "Swam in it and frolicked, rolled on my back and fountained like a whale. Very naughty. No more blood, no no."

He jerks suddenly, looks at nothing, then throws his head back for a huge laugh.

"He _believed_ that? The _father_ will kill the _son_? Well, that got cocked up right proper, didn't it?"

It's ludicrous to let oneself be shamed by a mass murderer, but Wes' face gets hot, and then he feels the tickle of a thought, something in what Spike said. It's amorphous and wiggling, this idea, and he can't pin it down here, not with the ranting vampire and the almost-heard whispers in the dark corners.

"Let's go," he says, and they walk forever in circles until they come out into sunlight.

Wes staggers to the nearest courtyard bench, sits limply. There's a number written on it to call for some sex act he's never even heard of. He wonders vaguely if Lilah knows how to do it, and if it hurts. "How many days were we in there?

"About an hour," Connor says, and looks back at the door. "So, we just gonna leave him down there like that?"

"Well, he's not human, is he?" Wes snaps, and Connor glares at him and stalks off to the water fountain.

Wes sits, letting his brain clear, and the idea starts to take shape. A lot of little things coming together, odd reactions and a Manichean philosophy of "us and them", and emphases of intonation from a crazy vampire. And he thinks he knows who to look for, for confirmation.

At first he likes the idea—at least it would be an answer. And maybe, maybe even fixable. He pictures himself bringing this theory to Fred—returning triumphant, when Gunn of the "street contacts" couldn't do it.

Then he remembers Fred's calls, the admonitions to brush teeth, change clothes, eat salsa, and he no longer wants to tell her this at all.

He walks slowly to the car, murmuring _don't be true, don't be true_, to his idea. And Connor lopes up, latest sulk blown over, and flashes him a smile. So familiar, so like the rare ones from Angel.

"Can I drive?" Connor says.

"No," Wes says, and they head back to LA.

 

\--END--


End file.
